This is who we are
by analine
Summary: Ianto makes a bit of a discovery about where Jack goes after he dies, and why. Jack/Ianto. One-shot.


**Title:** This is who we are  
**Pairing/Characters:** Jack/Ianto  
**Warnings/Spoilers:** none, worksafe  
**Rating:** PG  
**Genre:** a bit of everything, I think-angst/fluff/hurt/comfort  
**Word Count:** ~2,400  
**Summary:** Ianto makes a bit of a discovery about where Jack goes after he dies, and why.

**Notes:** I started with the schmoop_bingo prompt _shower together_, and then… As always, these things get away from me. I really like the idea of Ianto having to come to terms with Jack's dying though, so I used this as a way to explore that, I think.

* * *

On any given day, Jack's showers last, on average, between eight and eleven minutes.

Ianto knows this, because, well… He pays attention.

Getting to know Jack, his habits, his idiosyncrasies… It just makes it that much easier to anticipate what he might need next. Because when it comes down to it, the way Ianto sees it, it's all about making Jack's life easier. It's his _job_.

And so he pays attention to things like how long Jack spends in the shower. Like any good assistant would.

And because Ianto pays attention, he knows that Jack's showers in Sub-Basement Two-where Jack goes after he dies-last twice as long. Twenty minutes, give or take.

And this is odd, no matter which way he looks at it.

Jack has plenty of secrets, of course, secrets that Ianto has no qualms whatsoever about letting him keep-they all do.

But this is different.

It _feels_ different, feels important, somehow.

And so Ianto decides to keep paying attention.

* * *

Once, Jack is down there for thirty two minutes.

Ianto cleans the coffee pot and all the cups, by hand, as he waits for him to return and refuses to admit that the jumpy feeling in his chest is nervous anticipation, and not just the usual overdose of caffeine, and other minor stimulants.

* * *

Several weeks later, after an unfortunate run-in (strangulation by three-foot tentacle) with an alien whose name Ianto doesn't even want to try to pronounce, Jack descends, and then doesn't speak to anyone for almost three hours after he emerges, twenty four minutes later. The edges of his hair are still wet when he enters his office and proceeds to bury himself in paperwork.

Ianto is sure that no one else on the team notices.

On Tuesday, March 12th, Jack gets his throat torn open by a weevil, and bleeds to death in Ianto's arms.

Owen scowls at him when he refuses to move, even after the weevil has been subdued, and thrown into the back of the SUV.

"Just give him another minute," Ianto says calmly, even though the weight of Jack's body is so heavy that his arms are aching, and his extremities have long since gone numb.

"Fine, whatever," Owen says, his back already turned away from Ianto. "No way am I waiting out here with you though. It's bloody freezing," he mutters as he climbs into the driver's seat. "Would it kill him to hurry it up a bit?"

Ianto closes his eyes, willing the snappy retort on the tip of his tongue to stay there. He's not in the mood for a fight—-even a half-assed one—-today.

A few minutes later, Jack comes to with a gasp, and finally, Ianto can feel his arms again. Relief floods over him, too, as he shoves Jack off of him with a smile.

"Welcome back, sir."

"Weevil?" Jack asks, and when Ianto nods, he grunts in disapproval. "That's twice this week."

"Three times, technically, if you count the—"

But Jack isn't listening, he's up, and halfway to the SUV already, throwing open the passenger door theatrically, as Owen frowns over at him.

"Took you two long enough," Owen says, as Ianto hops into the back seat.

_You're welcome_, Ianto thinks, as he closes his eyes and sinks into the leather seats, grateful that Owen's got the heater going full blast.

After they return to the hub, Jack spends twenty three minutes in Sub-Basement Two, while Ianto writes up what feels like his hundredth incident report on weevils where he's had to make up a creative euphemism for Jack's "condition".

He could just leave out the part where it attacked Jack, sure, but… In a strange way, he enjoys the challenge.

* * *

Two months, and approximately six deaths later, Ianto can't help it. He follows Jack downstairs.

He's glad that he had the forethought to grab a towel from Jack's quarters before he started after him, because now that he's here, he realizes he has no idea what to say, or how to explain his presence.

The water's already running by the time Ianto arrives, so he takes a seat on an ancient looking wooden bench in what could almost pass as a locker room down here, if he didn't know better, and waits. He wonders what on earth they ever used this place for; surely someone must have had some reason for building it, but honestly, Ianto can't fathom what that reason would be. He makes a mental note to check the archives, but really, he's just giving his brain something to focus on other than the fact that the water has stopped.

His heart is hammering in his chest, and he has no idea why. It's a bit late to worry about Jack being angry, he supposes, so he just fixes his face with a friendly smile, and keeps it there until Jack walks out of the shower room.

"Towel?" he asks as he stands, facing Jack as he walks towards him.

"Ianto," Jack says, not sounding particularly surprised.

Jack already has a towel, naturally, so Ianto sets the one he brought down on the bench, waiting quietly as Jack procures a change of clothes from behind a small, metal closet door. He turns his back, in a vain attempt to give Jack some privacy.

"Didn't even know this place was here until about a month or two ago," Ianto says, eventually, when it becomes apparent that Jack isn't going to say anything.

"Hmm," Jack offers, as he fastens his braces to his trousers.

"Can't imagine what they would have built it for, really," Ianto continues, not being able to help his sudden nerves from creeping into his voice.

"No clue," Jack says bluntly, running the towel over his head one last time, and then tossing it to Ianto.

Ianto blinks. "Sir?"

But Jack's back is already turned, and he's already striding purposefully toward the hallway.

Ianto gets the hint.

* * *

"I'm sorry," he says to Jack at the end of the day, after the others have gone home, and after he's fed Myfanwy, and it's just him, and Jack, and the constant hum of the mainframe.

He's brought Jack's favorite evening beverage-hot chocolate with German chocolate flakes, and marshmallows-as a kind of peace offering.

Jack has barely spoken to him all day, except to request coffee, and then lunch.

Obviously, he'd crossed some kind of line earlier.

"I shouldn't have followed you," Ianto continues, hovering somewhere just inside the door to Jack's office, because some vague instinct of self-preservation is stopping him from going any further until he can accurately gauge the situation-in other words, Jack's mood.

"No, you shouldn't have," Jack says pointedly. Then he grins, gesturing towards the tray in Ianto's hands. "Is that what I think it is?"

Ianto allows himself to smile for the first time in hours, as he walks towards Jack's desk-safe now, those instincts tell him-to deliver his offering, and breathes what he hopes isn't an audible sigh of relief.

* * *

Ianto doesn't follow Jack again.

He still pays attention though, to the patterns, to Jack, to all of it.

And Jack still uses the showers in Sub-Basement Two, which Ianto figures, at the very least, means that he trusts him with his secret.

And knowing this fills Ianto with a much greater sense of satisfaction than he cares to admit, most days.

* * *

"Hey," Ianto says to Jack one night, months later, after they've been lying stretched out next to each other down in Jack's tiny camp bed for hours, practically lying on top of each other really, the space is so bloody small.

Ianto can feel Jack's heart beating against his ear, as he presses his cheek against his chest.

"What does it feel like, when you die?"

Jack sighs a little, and shifts so that he's facing Ianto, his head propped up on one elbow.

"Sorry," Ianto says quickly, and then realizes he's not even sure what he's apologizing for. For asking? For wondering? For prying? Maybe all of the above.

"It doesn't feel like anything," Jack says finally.

Ianto doesn't really believe him, but he also doesn't really get the sense that Jack is lying. Either way, he's mostly just pleasantly surprised that Jack answered him at all. He waits for him to continue.

"It doesn't feel like anything, but…" Jack says, fixing Ianto with a long look, those sharp eyes staring what feels like straight into Ianto's soul, as always.

"Sometimes it takes me a few minutes to remember things…" Jack hesitates a little. "Things about myself, about who I am."

Ianto processes this, like fitting pieces of a puzzle together. "A few minutes?"

Jack nods. "Yeah, it's strange. It's not like amnesia, like I don't know who I am, but… It always feels a little strange, at first. Like a hangover, almost. The details are fuzzy for a while."

Ianto smiles. "A hangover?"

"Yeah," Jack teases, reaching over to poke Ianto in the ribs. "Surely you've experienced something like that in your brief 24 years, right?"

Ianto pretends to consider this. "Perhaps once…"

Jack laughs, and Ianto swallows past the lump in his throat, not sure if he should press his luck, but at the same time, he really doesn't think he can hold himself back.

"So is that why, with the shower?"

To Ianto's relief, Jack just nods. "I guess I use that time to gather my thoughts. To piece together who Jack Harkness is again."

"To recover from your death hangover."

Jack smiles. He looks amused. "Sure, I guess you could look at it that way."

Then Jack's grin takes on a slightly sadistic overtone. "You've been wondering about that for a long time, haven't you," Jack says, sounding more than a little pleased.

"Yep. Over a year, give or take."

"And you never thought to just ask?"

Ianto stares at him. "I didn't want to pry. I thought… After I followed you…"

"That I was angry?"

Ianto nods.

"I was," Jack agrees. "So what?"

Ianto smiles a little, cautiously. "Well, back then I didn't know you like I do now. I was afraid of what you'd do to me, I think."

"And now?"

"Now I'm pretty sure I can take whatever you've got."

"I'll take that as a challenge, Jones," Jack says, rolling Ianto over onto his back, and pinning him his arms to his sides.

"Bring it on, sir," he says, and then smiles up at Jack, his heart thumping wildly in anticipation.

* * *

The next time Jack dies-gunshot wound to the stomach, some kind of alien tech that lodges in him and _then_ rips the flesh apart-it takes him over an hour to bleed out. There's nothing Ianto can do. He's already taken out the perpetrator with two quick shots to the head, but they're a good twenty minutes on foot from the SUV, and he has no choice but to wait for back up.

He tries to stop the bleeding.

A bit frantically, really, despite Jack's stern orders every few minutes, while he's still lucid, to just leave him alone. But really, who does Jack think he is, who does he think _they_ are, that Ianto wouldn't cover himself in blood, that he wouldn't rip the sleeve off his second best suit in a really rather pathetic attempt at a tourniquet. That he wouldn't shed a tear or two when those last breaths finally come, and he sees the light go out of Jack's eyes. There's no one there in the field except for him, and Jack, anyway. No reason to hide his grief, and Ianto has finally come to terms with the fact that that's what this is-he won't call it something else just because it doesn't make sense to mourn someone who's going to come back around in ten minutes.

And so what, if his face is still stained with tears when Jack comes to. So what if he's still a bit of a mess when Gwen finally shows up, if he's covered in blood, if he has a few visible bumps and bruises from when he'd taken the thing out before.

So what if the ragged-edged sleeve of his suit is still hanging out of his trouser pocket when they get back to the hub, right where Jack had torn it off and left it, as soon as he'd come around.

And so what if when he follows Jack down to Sub-Basement Two, for the second time in twelve and a half months, and Jack says, quietly, "Join me," Ianto is so relieved, he can't do anything but nod his head in mute response.

* * *

They strip quietly on the tiled floor.

Jack handles the controls, leading Ianto by his elbow into the warm stream of water. They stand there next to each other for a moment, and then Jack wraps his arms around Ianto's shoulders, pulling him close. Eventually, Ianto brings his arms up around Jack's back, feeling the water as it slides down around them, pooling around his forearms where they meet's Jack's waist. He closes his eyes, feeling warm-almost _too_ warm-droplets of water falling over his eyelids, his lips.

"I'll never get used to you dying," Ianto says, finally, when he's found his voice again.

"Same here," Jack says softly, his lips warm and wet when he places a kiss to Ianto's forehead. "I could get used to this though," he says, running his fingers though Ianto's hair.

Ianto just smiles against Jack's chest, feeling the warmth of the water, the thump of his heart in his chest, the soft slide of Jack's skin against his, and then Jack, closing his eyes, and pressing their foreheads together, his breath coming warm and slow in the space between them.

_This is who you are_, Ianto thinks, and then he says the words over again and again in his mind, like a mantra, willing them into truth. Like a prayer, if he prayed, which he doesn't, but…

"This is who you are," Ianto says, his voice practically a whisper, and he's not sure why it suddenly feels like a question.

"Yes," Jack says, and his eyes flutter open for a moment, before they close again, and Ianto realizes that he's really glad that he asked.

"_Yes_," Jack says again, and presses his lips against Ianto's, a warm slide of contact that stops before it starts, just a reminder, really...

_This is who we are._

**end**


End file.
